A Yakuza Happy Ending
by Dionys
Summary: [As seen in my Cherry Blossoms collection] Doumeki was working undercover for the police when he first came to Yashiro. And Yashiro finally finds out. Set shortly after the kiss in Chapter 23 of the manga. UPDATE: Still works if it's set after Chapter 25 of the manga.
1. I Don't Have Any More Secrets

_Hi everyone!_

 _This is the exact same story as Chapters 8 and 9 in my_ Cherry Blossoms _one-shot collection. So if you've already read that, there's nothing new you'll find here. (Sorry to my subscribers who got the notification! Same story, new title!) I just posted up the Undercover Cop story separately because it occurred to me that it's quite elaborate and probably needed to stand alone._

 _For all new readers, here's the summary/warning: lots of angst. And sex and fluff, but mostly huge helpings of angst._

 _Set shortly after the epic, Earth-shattering canon kiss in Chapter 23 [UPDATE: AND THEN THE EVEN MORE EARTH-SHATTERING CANON SEX IN CHAPTER 25] of the manga._

 _Hope you enjoy!_

* * *

Yashiro should have known something serious was going on as soon as he entered Misumi's office. His Oyaji had always been gruff but even in the thick of the most nefarious of Yakuza wars, there was always a certain detached amusement behind his gruffness.

Now, there was nothing. Only heavy lines across his face.

Yashiro should have noticed it. But he was too caught up in what had happened recently.

The tears. The embrace. The kiss on the bathroom floor. Everything that had happened immediately after that. It was all still fresh. He could still taste Doumeki on him. Doumeki on his lips and skin and in his hair and inside him and around him. The smell of Doumeki on the sheets. Doumeki.

Doumeki.

And so he was understandably distracted.

'What's all this about?'

With his wide, languid grin, eyes half-lidded and seeing something else, Yashiro fell with a huff on Misumi's couch. Misumi himself stood by the coffee table. His Amou replacement,* whom Yashiro would always call his Amou Replacement, hovered nearby looking nervous.

Uncomfortably aware that he was trying to stall, trying to push back the moment as far as he could, Misumi stared at Yashiro for a few seconds. He saw the thinly disguised happiness. He remembered a boy he had once seen lying naked in the snow, whistling.

His insides churned at the thought of what the news would do to him.

'Where's Doumeki?' Misumi asked quietly.

Hearing his name sent a small flare to Yashiro's stomach.

 _I'm like a blushing schoolgirl,_ he thought in dry amusement. _Again._

'Waiting by the car, like you asked,' said Yashiro carelessly as he lit a cigarette one-handed.

He remembered how Doumeki had looked standing before the Lexus, fists at his sides. His face was as deadpan as ever but somehow communicated his reluctance to leave Boss' side. Yashiro had turned to look at him before he went into the building and, sure enough, Doumeki's gaze hadn't moved from Yashiro even for a moment.

'Good,' said Misumi.

'So what's going on? We were on our way to the docks. The transfer won't oversee itself.'

Yashiro then noticed the file in Misumi's hand, stamped with the Japanese Police emblem.

'We just had a leak from the OCD,' Misumi began.

'Ah. All my hard work with the Organised Crime Division paid off, did it?' said Yashiro, remembering how many times he had bent over backwards for their guy in the OCD. Bent over forwards more often than back, he reflected lightly. He wondered whether things would change, now that Doumeki –

'They found a rat,' Misumi said simply. 'This one's been protected by the very top. Only the highest levels of the JP know about him – the commissioner and vice-commissioner.'

'Sounds like quite the leak.'

Without another word, Misumi handed Yashiro the file. Yashiro opened it.

And the ground fell away.

* * *

As expected, Doumeki asked no questions when Yashiro climbed back into the Lexus, this time accompanied by Nanahara and Sugimoto. Doumeki closed the door after them and got into the driver's seat. Nanahara sat in front.

Before the call from Misumi, they had been on their way to the docks. Doumeki headed for the exit to the harbour.

'Drop-off point,' Yashiro said tersely. 'Warehouse 11, in Ueno.'

Doumeki glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. His voice was stiff like Doumeki had never heard before. His mouth was set in a firm, thin line and his eyes were strangely cold. Glassy. They were fixed out the window.

Even Nanahara and Sugimoto seemed tense. Doumeki wondered what had happened in Misumi's office.

'Yes, Boss.'

* * *

The warehouse reminded Doumeki of the time Yashiro had rescued him from Ota's clutches.* Boss had put himself and his job and even his life on the line for him.

Unlike that bright, blinding day, clouds had gathered thickly that afternoon and the air seemed somehow muted.

They entered the echoing space, Doumeki walking behind Yashiro and keeping his eyes on the shadowy edges of the empty warehouse. _Check your corners and blind spots._ Training from his days as a cop.

'Doumeki,' Yashiro said without turning. 'Your gun.'

Doumeki reached under his jacket and slipped it out of his belt line. He handed it to Boss.

He missed the subtle signal Boss gave to Nanahara, who had followed immediately behind Doumeki.

Something sharp and heavy collided with the back of his head. He saw stars and stumbled. Nanahara then came around and threw his knee into Doumeki's gut.

Winded, Doumeki fell to the floor of the warehouse. His mind flashed through a million possibilities, all of which centred on the likelihood that Boss was in danger.

'Boss –!'

He craned his neck up and was immediately relieved to see Yashiro standing nearby, unharmed. He held Doumeki's gun loosely at his side. Nanahara stepped between them, his face livid like Doumeki had only seen it once before.

Relief turned to confusion.

That was when the awful, impossible thought occurred to Doumeki. The one thing that he had done everything in his power to keep from Boss. The one thing that would destroy everything, everything, if Boss ever found out.

Right before Nanahara's foot collided with him again, he looked up at Boss' face. And his insides went cold.

The icy, dangerous gaze. The desire to hurt. The betrayal. It was all there in Yashiro's eyes. It was a look Doumeki had prayed he would never see.

He barely felt the kick in his stomach. He barely felt anything at all. He didn't even try to fight back.

* * *

'It's the perfect time to go undercover.'

His bosses – bosses as high up as bosses go – sat across the desk from him. The Shinseikai group's files were spread before him.

'The whole world, including your immediate commanding officer, thinks you've been kicked off the force. Everyone knows what you did. They'll lap it up at Shinseikai. A cop turned bad. Easy sell.'

Doumeki had remained silent. The operation was simple enough. Gather enough on the young leader and others, Misumi included, so the cops could build their case and bring down the entire group once and for all.

There was a photo of the young leader of the group in one of the files. His target, if they were lucky. He would have to start small. Start from the bottom. But if things worked out…

Yashiro. A name that rolled pleasantly off the tongue. A face that seemed too perfect for his world. A world that Doumeki was on the point of entering.

His superiors sensed his hesitation.

'The only question you need to ask yourself is whether you want to keep your job,' the commissioner said. He spoke slowly and deliberately, with a measure of care in each syllable, so Doumeki could feel the full weight of the decision.

'We know we're taking a risk even coming to you like this. But frankly, we don't care why you snapped and tried to kill your own father. Your record was impeccable before that… incident. And you know this beat, you know the neighbourhood back to front. Best of all, no one will suspect you. You're our guy.'

Another long silence. Doumeki felt his life stretch away before him. Perhaps it was the one way to redeem himself after the mess that he had left behind. The one way for him to forget the look on his sister's face when he saw her that day.

'This is your chance,' the police commissioner told him, with all the gravity and wisdom of a higher power, 'to prove who you really are.'

* * *

The warehouse door was wide open. Yashiro could see the thickening layers of clouds above. The way it plunged Tokyo into a heavy sort of silence which shielded it from what was taking place on the warehouse floor.

Yashiro watched as Nanahara's fists pounded into Doumeki's face. He felt each blow in a deep, private place. One that writhed in the reception and revelled in the infliction. He wanted Doumeki to hurt.

He wanted him to hurt as much as he was hurting.

He wanted Doumeki to feel as though the ground had fallen away. Like he had forgotten how to draw breath.

'As far as we can tell,' Misumi had said gravely back in his office, 'Doumeki Chikara is still under the gainful employment of the OCD.'

Sugimoto watched from nearby, his gun trained on Doumeki's huge form, to keep him in check. But Yashiro could tell that it was unnecessary. Doumeki wasn't even trying to defend himself, let alone fight back.

Yashiro was both there, where Doumeki was being beaten, and back in Misumi's office when he had found out for the first time. It hadn't yet caught up. Not really. Not enough for him to look back on every little moment and understand what it had all really meant. Why it had turned out that way. How he could have been so blind.

'I'm sorry, Yashiro,' Misumi had said, using a voice Yashiro had rarely ever heard. 'I know what it's like when those closest to you…'*

Yashiro turned to look at him and felt a spark of pure, white anger grow in the pit of his stomach. It came from everywhere and nowhere and it was so powerful it threatened to overwhelm him, but it was focused on Misumi at that moment.

No idea. Misumi had _no idea_ what it was like. Him and Amou? Him and _Amou?_ It was laughable. Misumi had no idea what it was like. Not a fucking clue.

But in the end, Yashiro didn't even muster a glare. He battened down that surge of anger and instead fed it to the pit of emptiness that had opened up.

The pit of emptiness that had opened in his childhood in the wake of his stepfather. And again when he was fifteen and crying his soul out over something Kageyama had said to him almost in passing. And again when he pushed Kuga in Kageyama's direction. And again and again every time he felt the need to be filled. By someone. Anyone.

It gaped, yawning open yet again, when he stared at Doumeki Chikara's police file which he held in his hands. Doumeki stared up at him from his profile photo, impassive and serene.

 _You have nice eyes._

Eyes that were steady and unwavering and dedicated and intense. Eyes that Yashiro, in his utter, breathtaking stupidity, thought he was beginning to learn how to read.

* * *

Only a month after he had begun working for Kirishima, Doumeki's particular talents, and lack thereof, had been noted by both his immediate superiors and Nanahara. Namely, his silence and his size and his inefficiency as a loan shark.

 _We're short on people at the moment. On top of that, he's not good at talking so I thought we could use him as a bodyguard. You wanted one, right Boss?_

After meeting Yashiro for the first time, Doumeki carried memories of Yashiro's mouth around his cock and the way his eyes had taken Doumeki in. Like he already knew Doumeki's every secret. His sister. His father. His job. All of it.

He called headquarters.

'Only a month in and you're the pervert's lapdog already, huh? Nice job.'

The commissioner's voice was brittle and dry over the phone.

'Do whatever he wants. Be careful for now. Later, when you have his trust, start gathering what you can. When you and all the other informants have enough, we'll round up all the roaches in one big hit at Tsuji.'

Doumeki knew the plan.

'Give us something we can use.'

* * *

But Doumeki never did.

His very first day on the job, he had been handed a drunk, half-unconscious Yashiro to take home.

 _The boss is beautiful. That's what you're thinking right? Your eyes say it all._

Misumi's words had cut him to the quick. He had no idea he had been that transparent. His heart pounded madly, wondering what else they might be onto. Whether this had all been a fool's mission from the beginning.

Yashiro's weight on his back was an anchor that held him to the world. He felt grounded and real for the first time in years. He wondered whether he was still, somehow, trying to prove who he really was.

A few hours later, Yashiro fell asleep with his head still in Doumeki's lap; on the inside of Doumeki's thigh. Dawn leaked slowly in from the world outside and Doumeki turned to look at it.

He moved Yashiro's head gently onto the bed.

And he searched Yashiro's flat half-heartedly.

 _Give us something we can use._

His heart wasn't in it. Each drawer he pulled open, each file he riffled through. It all felt like grains of sand that sifted pointlessly through his hands.

After a while, he realised he was hoping not to find anything. He was relieved when it turned out, as he had suspected, that Yashiro was smarter than that.

And so he returned to Boss' bed. He intended to just lie there for a few moments. Instead he fell asleep.

It was the following morning that Yashiro found the little newspaper clipping in Doumeki's pocket. The piece on Aoi Doumeki, an up-and-coming artist.

That day was the day everything changed for Doumeki. The day he finally realised who he was. Or who he would try to be. For Boss.

* * *

 _I don't have any more secrets,_ Doumeki had once told him.

 _You're a bad liar,_ Yashiro had replied.^

* * *

The thuds of Nanahara's fists and feet impacting Doumeki's body were much louder than the muffled sounds that occasionally came from his mouth.

Yashiro's eyes were cold. His face and body were rigid. But on the inside, he was broken.

'Is that why?' he said suddenly.

It was the first time he had spoken since Nanahara began. The pounding stopped. A long, awful silence claimed the warehouse; a silence that was magnified by the broiling grey clouds outside.

'Is that why you wanted to stay by my side so badly?'

His voice didn't quiver for a moment. It was all delivered in a low, smooth, acerbic tone. The words and the look on Yashiro's face hurt Doumeki more than anything Nanahara had done to him.

He hesitated. He tasted blood. He felt the skin beneath his eye starting to swell. He tried to form words.

'No, Boss –'

Nanahara kicked him again.

Yashiro didn't stop him.

* * *

He couldn't defect. He couldn't simply switch sides like he had turned the page of a book. If the commissioner got any wind of his newfound loyalty, he would be arrested in a heartbeat.

So his weekly phone calls to headquarters continued. He would send them things. Small things. Nothings, really. Plans for transactions and drops and deals that would change at the last moment. So Shinseikai was never implicated. So Yashiro was never in harm's way.

'Heard you sliced your pinkie off,' the commissioner said a few weeks later.

Doumeki remained silent.

'You've got balls, I'll give you that. Not a lot of agents would have gone that far.'

If the commissioner ever suspected, Doumeki never found out.

In any case, by then, Doumeki was long gone. He was Yashiro's arms and legs. And he would follow Yashiro to the ends of the Earth.

* * *

Eventually, when it felt like years had passed, Yashiro lifted a hand.

Nanahara stepped back, panting and sweating and furious. And still vaguely guilty about the fact that it was his own fault that Doumeki had wormed his way to Boss' side in the first place.

Yashiro stared at him. Doumeki felt small again in a way that had nothing to do with his bruises or the fact that he was curled up on the floor.

He knew and Yashiro knew and Nanahara knew and Sugimoto knew what would happen next. How the Yakuza dealt with rats.

There wouldn't be a chance for him to even explain himself or –

'Do you deny it?' Yashiro asked suddenly. The gun was still by his side, pointing straight down.

Doumeki blinked at him, taking shallow, painful breaths.

Yashiro stared down and there, somewhere, Doumeki saw a chink in his armour. A flash of hurt. Something that he could latch onto.

But the question. The question itself was one he couldn't answer.

Yashiro waited and prayed. He prayed for anything to fall from the sky and tell him he didn't have to go through with it. That it had all been a mistake. That Doumeki cared for him, and it hadn't all been a huge, glaring, hilarious lie. He waited.

The safety clicking off the gun resounded in the cavernous space.

'Do you deny that you're still working for the OCD? And that you have been since the beginning?'

It wasn't a quiver exactly. But there was something in Yashiro's voice, something unlike him, that made the other two glance at him uncertainly.

'Deny it,' Yashiro ordered. It was both an order and not. Both desperate and not.

Doumeki, at the best of times, couldn't express himself with any degree of confidence. Now, with something so important on the line, he had no hope at all.

He breathed heavily and tried to hold Boss' gaze for as long as he could. Then it fell away.

'I can't, Boss.'

In that split-second, Yashiro thought he could pull the trigger. He realised he could, in fact, fathom seeing Doumeki lying there with a bullet hole in his chest. The anger and betrayal that clawed at his insides were powerful enough for all that and worse. He remembered Doumeki's huge hands on his body. The heat and relentlessness of his cock. The way he had watched Yashiro and moulded his body beneath him. The way he had murmured a few words into Yashiro's hair in the burnished light of sunset before they fell asleep.

All lies.

And yet the gun remained by his side. The safety remained off. Time ticked away in that grey warehouse on that grey day. Nanahara and Sugimoto felt the space around them stretch thinly. The world held its breath.

Despite how long it took Yashiro to make a physical move, the desire to pull the trigger only lasted a moment.

He abruptly turned away from Doumeki's battered body and walked towards the warehouse door where the sky was still grey and brooding but where the rain held itself back.

'Boss?' Nanahara called nervously. It occurred to him that he might be left to do the dirty work. He suddenly wondered if he could really bring himself to do it.

'I'm late,' Yashiro replied without even looking at his shoulder. 'Matsubara's waiting at the docks.'

'But what about –?'

'I'll deal with it later. Stay here. Sugimoto, you're driving.'

Sugimoto slipped his gun into his belt line and followed Yashiro to the car.

Sighing in frustration, and a small amount of relief, Nanahara turned back to Doumeki.

Doumeki, whose eyes hadn't left Yashiro even for a moment.

* * *

 _ ***Author's note:** I mixed up canon and my own _ Careful Now _headcanon in this AU. This story takes place shortly after the canon kiss in Chapter 23 [update: and after the first-time canon sex in Chapter 25] but also, somehow, after all the many things that happened in_ Careful Now _, including the fact that Amou was revealed to be a bad guy (and killed), and including the part where Yashiro rescues Doumeki from bad guys in a warehouse, and including the part where Yashiro and Doumeki meet Yoneda Kou (which comes up in the next part). It's all a big confusing mess of a timeline lol. Hope you enjoyed anyway! Part II soon :)_


	2. For Yashiro

_Final part of the Undercover Cop story. Continued angst. Also sex and a tiny bit of fluff, as promised._

 _And an ending that is highly suggestive but also highly ambiguous. Hope you enjoy!_

* * *

Massive thank you to KatBlack for her love and support while I wrote up this little AU, and for inspiring Nanahara's line about 'taking the rat for a walk' (and for dealing with my 'SHOULD I PUT UP THIS STORY SEPARATELY' dilemma lol). You're a gem, mi amor!

anahara felt himself slowly turning into a watchdog. Doumeki was thrown into the basement room of one of Shinseikai's front companies and despite Nanahara's standing as Yashiro's #1 henchman, or so he thought, he was posted outside Doumeki's door around the clock. He had the distinct feeling he was being punished for his part in the rat fiasco.

'Don't know why Boss hasn't just killed you,' Nanahara would growl as he walked Doumeki to the can and back.

Doumeki, as ever, remained silent.

In fact, Nanahara wondered why Boss was dragging his feet on that count. He had always suspected that Boss and Doumeki had been doing the dirty for a while, but he didn't think something like that would hold Boss, of all people, back.

The first day or two stretched into a week. Food would be brought down and Nanahara occasionally was relieved by an underling. Yashiro never showed. And the order to get rid of Doumeki never came down.

And so Doumeki was left alone to nurse his failures and self-loathing.

He was left alone with the weight of how much he had hurt Boss.

More than any of it, he missed Boss with a near-physical ache.

* * *

Yashiro's world had turned into a series of bleak, chrome montages that slid past, past his vision and his hearing, without his having a say in it. It was a similar place he had descended into during his childhood. When those he had trusted had turned on him. And he was left alone.

He went to work and to meetings. He oversaw drop-offs and transfers. He gave orders and took orders.

But Misumi noticed. As did everyone else. He simply wasn't the same.

Gone was the snark and the laugh and the smile that reduced the world to a punchline. Just smoke rising from his mouth and half-lidded eyes that were too weighed down to be considered mellow. Like they were seeing something, or someone, who was elsewhere.

'The longer he's alive the more he's a liability,' Misumi tried telling him, gently enough given the circumstances. 'Especially if he doesn't have a chance to report back to his boss, they'll suspect he's been made and then –'

'I'm handling it,' Yashiro said, a little more sharply than he intended.

The mention of Doumeki's 'boss', his real boss, had left yet another wound in the same place. A place where he doubted the scars would ever heal, if such small, unassuming words like that could leave such a deep gouge.

Misumi pursed his lips and said nothing.

From morning to evening, Yashiro was shielded from the world by a thin, clear film. Only when he slipped under the covers at night did this barrier of numbness threaten to crack. He knew the questions and thoughts that had been hovering like vultures would descend and start tearing.

 _How long?_

 _The whole time?_

 _The whole fucking time?_

 _Maybe not… maybe he changed his mind. Maybe somewhere along the way, he decided –_

 _Then why didn't he tell me? Why didn't he just come to me and –?_

 _Don't be a fool. Of course he didn't change his mind. He didn't even defend himself, except for that one pathetic 'No, Boss' which could have meant anything. He lied. He lied from the beginning. He played you from the beginning._

 _You're pathetic._

 _How much of what he said… and did…?_

 _How much of it was… his job?_

 _I can't –_

 _I don't –_

 _– have the strength for this._

He knew that after everything else he had been through, this would be the one thing – the final straw – that would bring down the weight that he had kept at bay his entire life.

Thankfully, sleep always managed to find him before then.

* * *

'Know how much Boss hates me?' Nanahara said sourly. 'They're off doing some big deal, pretty much all hands on deck, and I'm left here to babysit your rat ass. I'm lower than the underlings now.'

Almost a week on, Doumeki was still being held in the basement room.

Each day melded into the next with no distinction.

His wounds healed by themselves. Nothing broken, everything bruised.

And Nanahara didn't hear him speak a single word in all that time.

Despite this, Nanahara had gotten so used to playing jailer that he let his hatred of Doumeki occasionally slide. He occasionally let himself fall back into the typical one-sided conversation they used to share. Occasionally.

So the moment that changed everything owed to an off-hand comment on one of Nanahara's occasional moods.

He stood inside the door, smoking in spite of the smoke having nowhere to go, and watched Doumeki staring uninterestedly at the bland food that had been sent down.

'And it's in the Tsuji complex,' Nanahara continued. 'A million levels underground in the parking lot. No cell phone reception or anything. Plus it's with the new Matsubara leaders, so who knows if they're out for blood or not. If shit hits the fan, I won't even know about it until I read it in the papers.'

 _Tsuji._

The name plucked a string from his memory. From months ago. The commissioner's dry, brittle words in his ear.

 _When you and all the other informants have enough, we'll round up all the roaches in one big hit at Tsuji._

Doumeki's head snapped up.

'But, hey,' Nanahara drawled on, resplendent in self-pity. 'Who needs Nana for real mob stuff when I can be here taking care of your sorry –?'

'It's a set-up,' said Doumeki suddenly.

Nanahara almost jumped. It was the very first thing Doumeki had said in almost a week.

* * *

 **Doumeki explains the mob/cop situation to Nanahara in bullet points:**

–Both Shinseikai and Matsubara have been infiltrated by undercover agents (Doumeki, technically, being one of them).

–When they gather enough dirt and evidence on their gang, they organise for their bosses to make the deal in a pre-determined place where the police can ambush them immediately.

–The transfer takes place in full view of undercover agents and police, and would be the final piece of evidence needed to make arrests and put people away for a long time.

–The fact that it is happening in Tsuji means Shinseikai and Matsubara were both walking into their own arrests.

* * *

Nanahara's cigarette fell from his lips. It rolled away on the concrete floor.

'We have to warn Boss,' Doumeki said unnecessarily.

'No cell phone reception,' Nanahara repeated numbly.

'Then we have to go. Now.'

'It might… it might not be a set-up. Tsuji could just be a coincidence.'

Nanahara was dialling Yashiro's number, knowing it would be futile, and reached for the door handle. Doumeki took a few steps towards him.

Nanahara turned.

'The hell are you doing?'

'I'm coming too.'

'Are you high? There's no fucking way I'm taking the rat for a walk.'

He hung up and swore under his breath when his call went nowhere. He barely registered Doumeki; in his mind he was already in the car, flying towards Boss. Perhaps even getting the chance to play hero.

'I'm not a rat,' said Doumeki suddenly.

Despite everything, the tone in his voice made Nanahara turn. Doumeki had, after all, revealed something that would undo years of undercover work. If he was telling the truth.

'And I… I know who the undercover agents are in Matsubara. I have to be there.'

 _I have to prove who I am._

The bullet wound in Nanahara's shoulder spiked in pain, as it often did when he was stressed. Or when he was caught in an impossible decision.

A decision that would see Nanahara as having played the hero or played the fool. Again. And just based on the question he was about to ask, he had a feeling it would be the latter.

'I'm going to ask you this once,' he said carefully, even as his pulse steadily picked up. 'Are you on their side or not?'

He waited for an impassioned speech that would rid him of the responsibility. So he could at least defend himself if it turned out to be the dumbest move in the history of the Yakuza.

'I – I was,' Doumeki said. He paused for a moment with his mouth slightly open.

He was suddenly assaulted by all the thoughts he had kept at bay for the past week. The past few months. Ever since he had sat across from Yashiro for the first time. He tried to funnel it all into the impassioned speech that would exonerate him.

Nanahara waited.

'I was,' Doumeki repeated. He squared his shoulders. 'But I'm not now.'

Nanahara stared. He waited for a few more precious seconds before it became clear that Doumeki was done.

'That's it? _That's_ your amazing defence?'

A deadpan stare. Balled fists. Nothing more to offer except for what was right there. The impasse between Doumeki and Nanahara could have lasted a long time. But they didn't have a long time.

And for some reason, Nanahara was remembering the wet thud of his fists and foot pummelling into Doumeki's face and body. It was accompanied by a feeling uncomfortably close to guilt.

'Fuck,' he assessed as he ran a hand through his hair. 'Okay. Fine. Fuck. Let's go.'

'What?'

'Let's go!'

He handed Doumeki a gun and they flew down the corridor.

Nanahara dryly considered it a good sign that Doumeki hadn't yet shot him in the back and fucked off.

* * *

They reached Tsuji with only minutes to spare.

Everyone tensed when a car hurtled into their midst from the upper levels. Thanks to Doumeki's reckless driving, a mere ten minutes had passed since Yashiro and his men arrived.

The members of Shinseikai were on the point of opening the trunks of cars to fish out their end of the deal; briefcases and duffel bags and files. All the usual Yakuza shit, Yashiro thought again, almost bored. He leaned against the trunk of the Lexus, his cigarette on its last embers. His mind, as ever, on Doumeki. And as ever shrouded by the thin, clear film of numbness.

On the other side of the underground complex was the Matsubara, gathering their gear together in the same way. They eyed one another across the echoing space. Ever since Yashiro helped Ryuuzaki find his woman (whose treatment at the hands of Hirata had motivated Ryuuzaki to quit the Yakuza life for good), new leaders had stepped in to fill the void.

In a few minutes, a new alliance would be forged in Tokyo's underbelly.

The last thing he expected was for Nanahara's car to come tearing down the ramp and come to a screeching halt near them.

And for Doumeki, of all people, to climb out.

Yashiro's stomach lurched.

The other gang stared at the sudden arrivals. A few hands went to holsters.

'What are you doing?' Yashiro demanded, his tone caught somewhere between dazed and angry.

Doumeki's heart thudded madly when he saw Boss – the shine of his hair, the cut of his suit, the line of his jaw, everything that he had been unable to shake for the past week – but he had to try to focus. He strode quickly towards Yashiro while keeping his eyes on the members of Matsubara milling about on the other side of the concrete expanse.

Yashiro felt the anger threaten to take over him again.

'Doume – Nanahara, what the hell's going on?'

Nanahara followed close behind Doumeki, gun cocked and at the ready. He heard the dangerous tone in Yashiro's voice and wondered again whether he was playing the hero or the idiot.

He stepped close to Boss' ear and began to explain in an undertone just as Doumeki spotted them from across the parking lot. Two of them. Members of the OCD and long-term undercover agents. They recognised him too.

That was all the confirmation he needed.

'It's an ambush,' Doumeki said, turning to face Yashiro properly.

Yashiro's breath caught in his throat at the sheer size of him and the blazing look in his eye. The words took a moment to catch up.

When they did, and even with the fragments of information Nanahara had told him, he still couldn't come to terms with the full import of what Doumeki had done. It would take him hours to do so.

'Stop,' he said suddenly, snapping his head around to the men who were on the point of unloading the cars. It was an order based almost entirely on instinct.

That was when the first shots were fired.

* * *

 **The mob/cop situation in a few more bullet points:**

–The unexpected arrival of Nanahara and Doumeki, and the fact that Yashiro looked like he was backing out of the deal, makes Matsubara suspicious that they're about to get screwed over.

–They start firing.

–The cops who have been waiting in the shadows, figuring that the transaction isn't going ahead, spring out and subdue the guys of Matsubara, knowing that they have enough to get one gang at least, if not Shinseikai as well.

–Shinseikai, thanks to Doumeki and Nanahara (who comes off, in the end, as a hero of sorts), manage to avoid any arrests or casualties. They fire a few shots in response, jump into cars and take off.

–The undercover cops recognise Doumeki and deduce that his sudden appearance was the reason Shinseikai was tipped off. Doumeki's loyalties are revealed.

* * *

When the crack of bullets ripped through the air of that underground lot, Doumeki's instincts kicked in. He grabbed Yashiro's arm and pulled him behind the cover of the car. Nanahara swore again and fired a few rounds before ducking.

Bullets glanced off the car in loud, tinny ricochets.

Yashiro was suddenly breathing in Doumeki's musk and felt the strong grip on his arm. He tried to focus. He called out to his men to fall back.

Doors slammed and tires screeched.

That was when they heard the barked orders of the police begin to join in the general cacophony. Doumeki spied them from over the car's hood; fully decked out in bullet-proof vests and little curly ear-pieces. His former life.

And crouched beside him then, his new life. The only life he wanted.

'Are you okay, Boss?'

Boss' mouth was slightly open in a pant, but otherwise he seemed unfazed. Unfrazzled. His usual self. It occurred to Doumeki that he hadn't once seen Boss like that day he sat in the corner of Doumeki's bathroom. He had never seen that helplessness before or since. Not even here, during a mob-versus-mob-versus-cop showdown.

The suddenness and the urgency of their close proximity behind the car ought to have made Yashiro's body flush with anticipation. He ought to be feeling the most profound relief over what the past few minutes meant.

But the hurt was still there. Doumeki's betrayal was still right there, at the forefront of his mind. It felt like it would never erode even slightly. Being close to him like that again only tracked a fresh cut into the wound.

He pulled his arm out of Doumeki's grasp.

'Don't touch me.'

The words, though delivered quietly, landed on Doumeki like the lash of a whip.

'Move,' Yashiro ordered.

Doumeki shifted backwards and Yashiro opened the car door and crawled onto the seat, keeping his head clear of the window.

'Get in front,' he said.

Doumeki obeyed.

His body grazed Yashiro's as he clambered over the top of Yashiro and into the front seat, all while the back of his head and neck burned, expecting a bullet to burst through a window at any second.

'Go!'

Theirs was one of the last cars to leave Tsuji. Every one of Yashiro's men managed to tear their way out of Tokyo's underbelly. Not even a shoulder had been nicked by a stray bullet.

As Doumeki gunned the car up the ramp, Yashiro caught a glimpse of the far end of the parking complex where the new leader of Matsubara was being slammed against the hood of a car and cuffed.

 _That could have been us_ , Yashiro realised. _All of us._

He flicked a glance at the back of Doumeki's head.

* * *

Over the phone, a distraught and relieved Misumi told Yashiro to go into hiding.

Yashiro refused point-blank.

'They don't have enough on me, or anyone at Shinseikai. Why else would they have waited so long to spring? They needed to see the transfer, and it didn't happen.'

'What if they have enough just because you showed?' Misumi pressed.

'Then they'll find me soon enough,' Yashiro said, his adrenaline rush slowly giving way to a kind of righteous exhaustion. 'I'll be waiting with my feet up on my coffee table and enjoying a scotch. Not hiding under some rock.'

He hung up in the middle of Misumi's protests.

Doumeki listened silently. They wound their way through the streets back into the heart of Tokyo. Doumeki knew the way to Boss' apartment without needing to think.

The rain that had been threatening to fall for days suddenly let loose on the city. Streetlamps swam by in a blurry haze.

Yashiro leaned back on the seat.

It almost feels, he thought, as though nothing had changed.

Neither said a word until they pulled up outside Yashiro's apartment. By then, Yashiro had processed everything that had happened. He understood a great deal more than he did before. And he had managed to break down the situation in which Doumeki now found himself.

 **(The Doumeki situation in two bullet points:**

–Doumeki is now in deep shit with his former cop bosses for having definitively switched to the dark side.

–Doumeki is still in deep shit with the Yakuza for being a rat.)

Doumeki waited for Yashiro to get out of the car. He didn't look into the rear-view mirror. The silence that hung between them was like none of the ones they had experienced before.

'Where are you going to go?' Yashiro asked.

Doumeki stared at the dashboard.

'Home,' he said.

The tiny apartment with the rust-speckled towel railing.

'You'll be arrested before you even walk in the front door,' Yashiro said.

'I know.'

Drops danced on the roof of the car in a softer imitation of bullets. Yashiro sighed loudly and opened the car door, letting in the steady sound of the downpour.

'Get out.'

It took Doumeki a few seconds to process Yashiro's quiet command. He then blinked and stepped out of the car into the rain. Yashiro didn't turn.

Doumeki followed him inside.

* * *

First the suit jacket came off. Then the vest. Then the sling. Then the shirt.

Each item landed on the floor in a soft swish.

Confused, heart pounding in his ears, Doumeki succumbed to muscle memory and followed in Yashiro's wake, picking up what he dropped.

And when he straightened, Yashiro stood before him, his chest and arms bare, at the doorway to his bedroom. His eyes were blazing in a whirl of emotions Doumeki didn't understand.

'Boss –'

Yashiro pulled him forwards by his tie. The kiss was hard and smouldering. Angry.

Boss' clothes fell from Doumeki's arms to the floor and he was suddenly pulled forward until Boss was crushed between him and the doorframe. The hand on Doumeki's face and neck was hungry and insistent. It clawed at his shirt, damp from the rain. Pawed at the buckle. Made up for its counterpart, which hung limply by his hip.

Doumeki surfaced from the kiss only to be pulled back in. He felt himself stiffening helplessly. His hands worked of their own accord and pulled Yashiro into him harder, so the full length of their bodies were pressed together. He then palmed his way heavily up Boss' back and into his hair. His soft, wonderful hair which he clenched hard in his fist.

He knew they ought to stop. He knew he shouldn't stumble so willingly towards the bed, being led by his dick, being led by the desire to make Boss his once more, if only for now. There was something about the look on Boss' face that scared him.

But he was there, kneeling between Boss' legs, kissing and biting his neck, seeing him prone and panting beneath him, hair askew. And he knew nothing would stop him then.

By the time he had taken Yashiro's pants off, Yashiro had managed to tear away the last button of Doumeki's shirt but didn't get a chance to peel it off him. Doumeki had reared back and pulled Yashiro's legs up high until they were pressed against his chest.

There was that same ferocity in Doumeki's eyes that Yashiro had seen in the back seat of the Lexus right before Doumeki did exactly what he was about to do.

His tongue, hot and wet, thrust deep into Yashiro's hole. His fingers pulled his cheeks apart as he delved.

Yashiro moaned and his head arched back into the mattress. A shiver raced through his body at his helplessness in Doumeki's hands. At the way his every muscle responded to the deft flicks and jabs of Doumeki's tongue and fingers.

Doumeki.

To his utter humiliation, tears stung his eyes.

'Enough,' Yashiro gasped, only just managing to hold back his tears. 'Fuck me.'

Doumeki drew away and tried to think clearly through the cloud of lust. He had barely stretched Yashiro open.

'Boss –'

'Fuck me right now. _Right now.'_

The urgent tone spilled into angry desperation. Doumeki had reached the end of his tether. Boss was spread wide in front of Doumeki, his cock stiff and leaking, his entire body quivering and waiting for him. For Doumeki.

Yashiro shivered once again at the sight of Doumeki looming over him, the hard muscles of his chest and stomach revealed through his open shirt. His hair was slick from the rain. A single drop had left a trail down his long, solid jaw. His eyes were alight with a single-minded purpose.

And his cock found Yashiro's hole.

And then he tore his way in.

* * *

And then he paused.

The way Yashiro cried out, the way he gripped the sheets, managed to cut through the haze of pleasure brought about by the unearthly heat and tightness.

'Boss…'

Yashiro writhed, his legs spread, his eyebrows arched in pain. Moans emerged in short puffs. Doumeki's cock twitched inside him.

'Boss, are you –?'

'Shut up,' Yashiro said in a hoarse whisper. His gaze was ruthless again.

'But –'

'Fuck me. Fuck me hard.'

 _Fuck me until I bleed._

 _Fuck me until I'm broken._

'Do it.'

And so Doumeki, against his better judgment, against all the voices in his head, succumbed to his primal urge to defile.

He pulled out until just the head of his cock remained. Then he plunged back into Yashiro's body in one merciless thrust.

 _'Ah!'_

He pushed in again.

And again.

Each time, it pulled a new, tortured sound from deep inside Yashiro. The friction was so great that even Doumeki felt the pain interlacing the pleasure.

'Harder,' Yashiro urged. 'Deeper!'

Doumeki complied.

He held Yashiro's hands down on either side of his head, the good one and the dead one, and hung his head low so he could see the full force of each thrust on Yashiro's face. So that his mellow eyes and serene, enigmatic smile were a distant memory.

'Hit me,' Yashiro hissed beneath him.

Mellow eyes.

Serene, enigmatic smile.

A side of Boss he hadn't seen for a long time. A side of Boss he feared he might never see again.

'Hit me, Doumeki.'

 _Please._

'Doumeki –'

Hearing his name emerge like that from Boss' throat almost pushed him to the edge. He stared down at his defiant, imploring eyes and tried to imagine it. He grit his teeth. He knew what he was capable of. And what he wasn't.

So he closed his hand on Yashiro's hair again, almost painfully, and kissed him. His cock never let up even for a moment.

 _'Mmmh!'_

Yashiro tried to pull back. His fingers tried to get a grip on the cropped hair on the back of Doumeki's head. Tears smarted his eyes yet again.

 _Hurt me._

And finally when Doumeki reared, he pulled out completely and flipped Yashiro over onto his stomach.

When he plunged back in, Yashiro's cry was muffled in the blanket. Doumeki planted his arms on either side of his body and pounded. Sweat and rain dripped from his hair onto Yashiro's back.

'Ugh! Ah, Doumeki… ugh…'

Doumeki pulled Boss' hips up and held his head down, eyes narrowed with lust. He took in the curve of Boss' back and neck before he started thrusting again.

'Doumeki...'

 _Why won't you hurt me?_

'Nngh… Doumeki…'

 _You've already done so much worse._

'Dou –'

 _How could you?_

And the tears spilled without any further warning. They poured hotly from his eyes and his throat. He gripped the sheets beneath him as Doumeki's cock kept carving its way into him, pushing breath and tears from his body.

 _How could you?_

The weight of everything that he had been keeping back finally cracked. The weight of Doumeki's betrayal had finally caught up and the vultures swooped in. Feathers flew everywhere, dank and muggy. He couldn't breathe for the tears.

It took Doumeki another few confused thrusts before he noticed. The strange little tremors were new. He didn't understand why Boss was curling into himself. Why he suddenly seemed so much smaller than before.

And then he heard the quiet sobs.

Doumeki's heart sank to the bottom of a well.

'Boss…'

For a moment longer, he held himself there, buried inside Yashiro and watching him cry as though from miles away.

Then he pulled out, bent low over Yashiro's body and gathered him close. He held Yashiro fast against his chest. For a while, his mind was a complete blank.

'I'm sorry,' he then heard himself say.

Yashiro felt it all without really feeling it. There were arms and words spoken into the back of his neck. But he felt as though it was happening to someone else. He wasn't there. He was still hidden somewhere behind the dank, muggy feathers. And still the tears poured.

Doumeki squeezed him tighter as though frightened he would slip through his arms into a place where he couldn't follow.

'I'm sorry,' he insisted, his voice breaking. 'I'm sorry, Boss.'

Yashiro heard it then. He heard the words in Doumeki's deep, broken voice.

And gradually the tightness of Doumeki's hold became real. The breath on the back of his neck was there. It was warm.

He felt himself slowly fading back in, weighing down the bed, pressed beneath the weight of another's body. Doumeki's body.

Doumeki.

* * *

After a foreboding build-up of days, the rain itself lasted less than an hour. The last few drops swatted half-heartedly against the window. Dawn hunkered at the edge of the skyline.

An exhausted, drained Yashiro extricated himself gently from Doumeki's arms. He lay a little apart from him, reclaiming his breath and staring straight ahead at the blue-black colour that the wall would always take at that particular time of night.

Doumeki sat up slightly, leaning his weight on one elbow, his knee bent slightly in the air. Waiting.

Yashiro's rain-streaked hair was drying slowly. His back was still turned. Doumeki had the feeling that the next thing that was said would somehow determine everything –

'Cigarette,' Yashiro said, softly but suddenly.

Doumeki stared.

Then he slowly pulled his pants back up over his hips, got out bed and rifled through the pockets of Yashiro's discarded pants.

Yashiro turned to watch him. His huge arms and broad back hunched over on the ground. Doumeki Chikara. The silent man with a big secret. A few big secrets.

Doumeki handed him the cigarette and wasn't sure what to do with the lighter. When Yashiro placed the cigarette to his lips and dropped his hand, Doumeki moved forward and lit it for him.

He watched the way Yashiro's skin was lit up in the sharp amber glow. How his cheekbones stood out like they were designed that way. How his eyes reflected the colour of the flame in that one moment.

Yashiro took a drag and the blue-black of night claimed him again. But his eyes were different. Familiar. They watched Doumeki steadily as though seeing him for the first time.

Just as Doumeki dared to allow himself a thimbleful of hope, Yashiro sighed once more.

'Lend me your lap.'

It was well after Yashiro stretched and rested his head against Doumeki's lap that it caught up with him.

And he found it was his turn to be brought right to the brink of tears. He didn't know how he managed to hold them back.

On his lap, Yashiro smoked and listened to the rain dying down.

Long minutes passed in silence.

* * *

'When?'

Doumeki looked at him.

'When did you change your mind?' said Yashiro. 'When did you… stop working for them?'

The day came to Doumeki immediately and vividly. He had pushed Yashiro backwards into the elevator doors, tie in hand, anger surging powerfully to his head. He had then raced down the stairs to his sister, who had told him gently, tearfully, of all the things Yashiro had said. And after he had gotten over his moment of numb shock, after sitting down with his sister for the first time in years, he understood the magnitude of what his boss had done for him.

That was the day he decided.

That was the day he had gone to Yashiro's apartment and waited for him. Where he had felt three foot tall under Boss' benign but inscrutable gaze. And where he had picked up the trail of clothes Boss left behind him. He had seen Boss' naked body for the first time, flush with the incandescent light in his bathroom, behind the humid cloud of vapour. He had knelt behind Boss and hung his head and begged to remain by Boss' side, no matter what.

That was the day.

He hesitated. He wondered how he could tell Boss that. He wondered if he even should.

'It was –' he began falteringly. 'That day when Aoi… when you talked to her and… and then –'

'Ah.'

The day came to Yashiro just as vividly. He remembered Doumeki's voice from behind him, low and soft and echoing in the bathroom, asking to remain by his side, no matter what.

He looked at Doumeki again. The hurt in Doumeki's eyes was only too clear. The self-loathing and the regret and the immense guilt.

'That soon, huh?'

He smiled when he remembered how he had repeated the words almost exactly when he asked Doumeki about his first erection.

Milestones all over the place. From impotence to allegiance.

He chuckled. The sound reminded Doumeki of dappled sunlight.

'You know what I keep thinking about? The day I made you dress up like a cop.'

He crossed his long, bare legs ponderously. Doumeki's eyes were drawn to them yet again.

'Little did I know, huh? Nanahara even came in and had a fit seeing a cop in my office. So many levels of dramatic irony there, I can't even keep up.'

Doumeki remembered how his heart had pounded as Yashiro made him stand there in his uniform, behind the badge to which he was still technically bound.

'Life's funny like that sometimes, isn't it?' Yashiro mused, sounding like a jaded veteran of an old, merciless war. 'A real riot.'

There would be cops at Doumeki's door. Misumi and the rest of Shinseikai wanting his blood. The vague possibility of cops breaking down Boss' door and placing him under arrest at any moment.

But he was lying in Boss' bed, with Boss' head in his lap, and against all odds, despite everything that had happened over the past few harrowing days, Boss seemed to have forgiven him for the worst of his secrets.

And so life, whether funny or not, suddenly didn't seem so bad.

'What was your plan exactly?' Yashiro wanted to know.

'Plan?'

'If you really did stop working for them. And kept it all up just so they wouldn't get suspicious. What was your plan? Your end game?'

Doumeki considered the question. He had considered it himself, if somewhat more abstractly. In truth, ever since the day he decided, there was only one thing that drove his every move.

'I wanted to stay with you,' he said. 'And protect you. From everyone. The cops and the Yakuza and anyone else. I just wanted to stay with you. Boss.'

Silence.

'Were you ever planning to tell me?'

Another silence.

 _I was afraid to. I knew you would cast me aside, exactly like you did. I couldn't bear to see the look in your eye that I saw that day._

'I don't know, Boss.'

Yashiro tilted up his chin and met Doumeki's eyes. The emotion there tugged at Yashiro's heart in a very real way.

'I wanted to,' Doumeki added quietly.

Though Yashiro's own hurt was still there, curled in a little ball in the pit of his stomach, he tried to imagine everything from Doumeki's perspective. Now that he knew, now that the thinnest and most impossible of voices had been vindicated and he knew Doumeki had been his almost from the start, he tried to empathise.

He tried to mentally track everything Doumeki had been through over the past few months, right until he blew his own cover that night.

And he stepped onto a familiar prickly bed of anxiety.

Doumeki had been entirely too reckless. He had put himself on the line far too many times. Bullets skimming past his head. The knife wound on his face. The bullets he took for Yashiro. The finger he sliced off for Yashiro. The job and the life he forsook for Yashiro. All for Yashiro. Always for Yashiro.

Dawn poured slowly over the buildings, weak and watery behind clouds. Doumeki remembered how bright it had seemed that day. His first day on the job.

Yashiro, his eyes also on the breaking dawn, thought of Ryuuzaki. How he had escaped it all. How it had taken one final push and he was now a ghost.

He found himself wondering how easy it might be.

* * *

The thought flitted about in his mind, playful and dangerous and tempting. It was still there by the time he lifted himself slightly so Doumeki, who looked about ready to drop, could slide onto the bed and rest his head.

Yashiro lay his head on his chest. Doumeki's arm circled him. Boss' hair was soft on his skin.

He took the cigarette butt Yashiro handed to him and placed it on the nightstand.

'The commissioner will know you've been made,' Yashiro observed almost lazily. 'And everyone on this side of the fence will want you dead. Misumi might even do it himself. Well not _himself._ Doubt he'd get his own hands dirty like that. He'd send one of his minions. Either way, if I were you, I would sleep with one eye open. Every night.'

Doumeki heard the faint note of mischief in Yashiro's voice. Like he was working his way up to something.

'Unless...' Yashiro said. The word hovered in the air above them.

Doumeki waited. _Unless?_

Then Yashiro laughed suddenly.

'You remember Kou-sensei, right?'

'Yes.'

'Remember when I told her we weren't about to give up the Yakuza life and open up a bed and breakfast anytime soon?'

Doumeki remembered. But he was too drowsy to try to piece together what Boss was trying to say.

In the pause that followed, Yashiro sobered a little. He took a deep, thoughtful breath.

'No such thing as a Yakuza happy ending,' he said to himself quietly, echoing what he had said to Yoneda.

His fingers slipped beneath Doumeki's open shirt and gently grazed his chest. Doumeki tried to keep his eyes on Boss for as long as he could before falling asleep. He longed to know what Boss was thinking.

 _I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid of what it'll do to me if I lose you._

Doumeki fell asleep. And Yashiro kept thinking.


End file.
